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Big data challenges businesses

Posted in AU on 12th July 2015

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One of the main challenges with new and emerging technology is not only finding an effective use for it, but ensuring it delivers the desired results as well. One of the challenges of big data for businesses is to leverage the technology to create positive results.

Big data analytics provide almost infinite opportunities for the companies who have adopted it. However, KPMG has discovered that a number of firms are struggling to match this potential with real-world results.

The positive is that companies are at least investigating these developments, with KPMG finding that 97 per cent of those it surveyed use big data analytics in some capacity within their business.

Despite this rate of adoption, the amount of companies satisfied with the investment is significantly less. Around a fifth (19 per cent) of respondents said they were “very satisfied” with the results they had achieved so far.

There is still value to the technology, with over 80 per cent believing that big data analytics helped them to make decisions that were faster and more accurate than what they had managed in the past. On top of this, just over two-thirds (67 per cent) found these methods enabled them to reduce risk in their operating procedures.

KPMG also provided the areas where companies are currently focusing this attention. Three-quarters are putting it to use in research and development, HR, supply chain and finance areas. The key aim for its use in these procedures is to increase productivity, as big data lets computers take over the hard work of analysing large quantities of information.

While these trends have already been established among a number of businesses, big data challenges businesses to pursue innovative uses. For example, KPMG discovered that fewer than 25 per cent of the companies it surveyed use big data to discover new revenue streams.

Interestingly, only 16 per cent use it to highlight future trends, leaving a big gap in the market for companies that can exploit this.